keeper#1
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Posts posted by keeper#1
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2026-27 Season Review
January-March Fixtures April-May Fixtures
Defender of the Year DC Rene Lefeuvre: The 19 year old academy product was our best defender all season. A good solid player who will be with the club as we move to Ligue 1
Midfielder of the Year RW Moussa Sylla: Right winger in his prime who scored eight goals with nine assists on the season
Forward of the Year CF Norman Bissette: The 22-year old center forward led the squad with 13 goals in our system that spread the goalscoring wealth around.
The Story
With a shaky backline and team struggling in the middle of the table, Olivier made a bold strategic move. He had the defensive line drop off from the high line that had been playing. He told the team to regroup and get the behind the ball after it was lost. But what did he tell the team to do once they won the ball back? He told them to attack on the counter. Bomb forward. Catch them out of position. Don't give them a chance to get their defense set. What happened? The defense still allowed goals. Sometimes in bunches. The offense? The offense starting scoring goals for fun. Four goals against Angers (2nd place). Four goals against Orleans (17th place - no surprise there). Four goals against Pau (9th place). You know what else happened? The defense started to play well. We had five clean sheets in seven matches. The team started to zoom up the table. We finished in 3rd place and got a bye into the semis. There, we dispatched Troyes in an offensive shootout 3-2. A berth in the finals and two-legged tie against 16th place Metz. A tight affair our place had the tie going back to Metz all knotted up at one. At Metz, we did what did best. Struck on t the counter twice. The defense kept Metz off the scoreboard. The 2-0 victory at Metz led to a 3-1 victory in the two-legged tie and Caen earned a trip back into Ligue 1. A little look at the unique possession-based counter attacking system Olivier used in the second half of the season with Caen.
Play out of defense: the ball doesn't get bombed forward to quickly and just lumped up to a lone center forward with no support.
Regroup: Gets players behind the ball
An enganche: Allows the attacking players to make around him - giving him a choice of which attacking runner to play in
A Libero: Provides a late attacking option and a double pivot next to the defending deep lying playmaker
An inverted full-back: Helps create a back three with the center back and wing back but covering the space vacated by the libero.
What goals has Olivier Accomplished
Win League Title - Olivier has never won a league title for Caen but has gotten them into Ligue 1. We will consider this one as 3/4 achieved.
Sell a player for, at least, 100,000 Euros - Olivier has sold six players for over 100,000 Euros and three players over 1,000,000 euros - accomplished
Have Five Academy Players play 1,000 minutes in the same season - The starred players are inherited academy products. Olivier is, technically, 27 minutes short of achieving this goal. But he played one product over 3,000 minutes and another over 2,800 minutes. We will consider this one - accomplished.
Have an academy player make a U19 or U20 National Team appearance - Tidiam Gomis has made an appearance for the French U20 national team - accomplished
Obtained Continental A & Pro License - Olivier has obtained his A license and is weeks away from receiving his Pro license - accomplished
At this point, I'm willing to say that Olivier has completed Stage 2 and is ready to move on to Stage 3. The current job market:
There's two jobs on this list that I'm targeting: Lens - an established Ligue 1 team and Gladbach - an established Bundesliga team.
A stretch job would be Valencia. They teetered on La Liga relegation but found a way to survive.
Applications have been sent to all three clubs.
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Holy crap, we done did it! Into Ligue 1. I need to look at the other boxes to see if I can move to stage 3. I think I'm close. I need to go through the inherited academy players.
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Only Metz stand between us and Ligue 1
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Revs, eh. Good luck but not too much. Philly Union supporter here.
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Back to the playoffs
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Leave it there. Nothing left to accomplish at TNS
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Signed through at least 2030. The Caen Academy should be fully functional by then.
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Great read as always Ben!
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Excellent work! Domestic treble is a great accomplishment
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2026-27 Midseason Report
Defender of the First Half - CB Rene Lefeuvre
Midfielder of the First Half - CM Mathis Picouleau
Attacker of the First Half - LF Victor Dukanovic
The Story
The best way to describe the first half of the season is inconsistent offense. The squad was great at beating the teams at the bottom of the table. Against the top of the table, we were awful. Got behind early and could never catch up. Olivier is struggling to come up with a solution to the problem. Play defensive - give up the early goal and never generate enough offense to come back. Play attacking - jump out to an early lead and then watch the defense slowly fold as the match wears on. The club isn't in a strong enough financial position to go out and improve the squad. The young players are not good enough, yet, to push the starters for playing time. This season, it quickly turning into a lost season with the club just drifting around the middle of the table. Not really pushing for a return to the playoffs. Not bad enough to fall into a relegation fight. We will see what the second half of the season will bring.
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In the end, Olivier was offered the Brest job but decided to stay at Caen and continue the project. He was also offered an interview with Monza (last place in Serie A) which he rejected.
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An unsolicited job interview. Brest currently sit in last place of Ligue 1 on just three points. They are impressed with Olivier's job with Caen but Olivier is unsure about moving to last place team in a higher division BUT if he can keep them up, there could be money to be had. Plus, Caen's board has been non-committal about a contract extension. Conversely, Olivier has only achieved one of the five Builder objectives at Caen should not move until he's completed those objectives.
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I'd take the cash. Olise is good but if you have the replacements on hand....take the money - the team will hopefully understand.
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I remember those financial woes when I managed Palace in FM23 but then I got lucky and Parrish sold the club.
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Paralyzed?!?!?!?! My word what a comeback!
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35 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:
Unlucky to fall just short, but hoping you can take the small extra steps next year. Nice to see the name Daouda Peeters there, he's had a tough few years (interesting story) but I hope he can go on to have the decent career his talent was predicted to deliver. If that can be under your management, it would be very pleasing.
What happened to him, IRL? Lower division teams (not named Wrexham) don't get a lot of media coverage in the US.
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Summer 2026 - Building the Caen Academy
During the 2025-26 season, Olivier took courses to obtain his UEFA A License. He did a lot of networking during the course and linked up with some up and coming coaches in the Ajax system. They met, had phone conversations, Zoom meetings and had many text exchanges. During that time, they told him all about the Ajax Academy and how the club used the academy to better the first time and using the sales of developed talent to build up the infrastructure of the club. Olivier spent the summer putting the first building blocks of the Caen Academy into place. It is nowhere close to a finished product but the pieces are slowly coming together. It's going to require a lot of scouting during season to fill in some of the gaps. The "easier" part has been done. Selling off some of the older talent that has no chance of making the first team at the club.
Not a lot of true transfers. We out-right cut some players. Some left on loan. So, we didn't raise a lot of money in the transfer sale market. The good news is I spent even less on players coming into the club. Only one true transfer in and the rest were on expiring contracts or not no transfer fee to bring them to Caen.
Transfers who are projected starters
Positional Backups
Longer Term Project
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Great signings. Things are looking up for The Eagles!
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2025-26 End of Season Report
The Story
The Vikings saw their season end in heartbreaking fashion in the Promotion Quarterfinals against Le Havre. Le Havre jumped out to a 1-0 lead midway through the second half. Caen kept knocking on the door to get the tying goal but it took a stoppage time penalty to tie the match at one. The Caen celebrations were very short lived as Le Havre came right back down the pitch and scored from the left wing then the final whistle blew and Le Havre advanced to the Promotion Semifinals against Guingamp. On the whole, it was a good season for Caen. They punched above their weight by reaching the playoffs when only a top-half finish was expected. The season could have been different if Seydouba Cisse had not forced his way out of the club in the middle of the season. We could never really fill the void that he left in the midfield. We went from 11 goals scored in that position in the first half of the season to just two in the second half. That's a big dropoff. Norman Bassette, our center forward, tried to fill that void and was on a great run of goalscoring form throughout January and February. Then, he picked up a month-long injury. The goal scoring completely dropped off until he came back to the starting squad and got back into match shape. All told. We still had a better season than relegated Nancy who have fired their second manager this season.
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Keep the momentum going into next season.
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Come on, tycoon! Big Bucks. Big Bucks. No whammies!
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13 hours ago, Hootieleece said:
How many teams have the potential to get promoted? 3? Two for sure and the winner of the playoff Semifinal plays the playoff team from Ligue1?
Good Luck with the run, I hope you do it.
3 teams have the potential to go up. Champ and runner-up go up directly. 3th-5th go into the playoff. 4th plays 5th in a "quarterfinal." Winner plays 3rd in the "semifinal." Winner of that plays 16th in Ligue 1 in the Final.
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Quick End of Season Update
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2026 Youth Intake
Not as good as last year's intake and some poor personalities leading the way at the top of the class.
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[FM24] The Builder & The Professor - Stage 4 Manchester United
in FM Career Updates
Posted
On to the interview phase: